Thanksgiving

I wanted to write something for American Thanksgiving which I hope becomes an international festival like St. Valentine's or Halloween. I have been given so many things to be grateful for in the last six months.....after loosing everything that was important to me, practically my ver y life when I HAD TO LEAVE India

THIS HUGE SHIFT IN CONSCIOUSNESS HAPPENED ONCE BEFORE IN MY LIFE IN CALIFORNIA. i WAS SO VERY HAPPY IN 1974 BEFORE SWAMI STRIPED ME AND TOSSED ME INTO HIS WASHING MACHINE,

I was such a happy person that I would sing little 'thank you songs'. "Thank you Lord for my beautiful cottage, thank you Lord for my kind and understanding partner, "Thank you Lord for my two doggies, Max and Butch, "Thank you Lord for my van and my Honda car....I would go on and on that way as I drove around Los Angeles making home calls as a social worker.

Then I visited India for two weeks and saw God and His washing machine..

My partner died of cancer, I left the cottage which was rented, gave away my two cars and my dogies. I LOST ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING and moved to India.

Ok so 30 years later I was doing mantras thanking God for my room in Round House 3 in His ashram, thanking Him for His daily darsans, for my friends, for my beautiful sarees and soooo much money to give away..

I WILL NOT RENEW YOUR VISA AND YOU WILL HAVE TO LEAVE THE COUNTRY.

Yes once again I lost absolutely everything in my life. As I think back to that period I wonder why they didn't put me in a mental institution butI soldiered on somehow. and even started writing blogs for us Sai Graduates.

. Even when I felt like I was mentally ill.

Over the past six months I have been given everything I need to start a new life, with my Beloved Swami's picture always by my side.

One of the traditions here in the USA is called BLACK THURSDAY and people line up outside the big department stores just before Thanksgiving with lists of 'good deals' I needed stuff....the last bits and pieces to completely furnish my beautiful apartment. I knew I could never go shopping but a Sai Devotee, Lois Buxbaum showed up the day before, took 200 dollars and brought me a digital camera, a musical key board, a brand new telephone and memory chips the next morning. I hadn't laid eyes on her in about 20 years.

So am I grateful to Swami for these things? Yes I am grateful for all of it, the pain and suffering included. OK mADHU PLEASE DO THIS AS A BLOG and then add next...the artical on thanksfulness by Oprah....Ok?

The process of purifying the inner equipment of man in the crucible of single-pointed speech, feeling and activity, directed towards God is called thapas (penance). The inner consciousness will then be rid of all blemishes and defects. When the inner consciousness has been rendered pure and unsullied, God will reside therein. Finally, he will experience the vision of the Lord Himself, within him.

- Vidya Vahini, Ch 19.